USA's Apolo Anton Ohno holds up eight fingers, representing the number of medals he has won, after the U.S. won the bronze medal for the men's 5000m relay short track skating competition at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Friday, Feb. 26, 2010. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)— AP

USA's Apolo Anton Ohno holds up eight fingers, representing the number of medals he has won, after the U.S. won the bronze medal for the men's 5000m relay short track skating competition at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Friday, Feb. 26, 2010. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
/ AP

TV highlights Channel 7/39

Noon: The U.S. men’s hockey team takes on Canada as the Americans try to win their first gold medal in hockey since the 1980 Games.

7 p.m.: The Vancouver Olympics comes to an end with Closing Ceremonies.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia  Leadership within the U.S. Olympic Committee has long said it needs to operate less like an amateur, volunteer-based organization and more like corporate America, with a keen eye to strategic partnerships and the bottom line.

And so it has. It even has grasped one of the fundamental tenets of big business: under promise, over deliver.

There were no brash medal forecasts by USOC officials at these Olympics that conclude tonight at BC Place, no gaudy projections that we heard in the past based on intricate statistical analysis combined with old fashioned optimism, and the result was the most successful Winter Games in U.S. history.

Counting today’s final in men’s ice hockey — the Americans will win gold or silver — the U.S. team will win 37 overall medals and either nine or 10 golds.

The previous record: 34 at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

The next best here: 29 by Germany.

“We really don’t view this as a competition between nations but between athletes, and our athletes did well,” said a beaming USOC Chief Scott Blackmun. “Our success helps us commercially … We can’t measure it specifically, but obviously our sponsors get more value when there’s more American success.

“I think it’s going to increase the appetite our sponsors have for the Olympic brand and the association with our organization. Did it help us? Absolutely.”

And to think: The last time the Winter Games were in Canada, at Calgary in 1988, the U.S. team won six medals. Total. It won six in a single day here.

Several factors are at work, no doubt.

•Location: The Games were in North America, a 30-minute drive from the U.S. border. That meant two things — U.S. athletes could train on the facilities here more easily, and U.S. fans could fill the stands.

“It has felt like a home Games for us,” said Apolo Anton Ohno, the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian with eight medals. “I think that’s part of the reason we’re doing so well, because we feel so comfortable.”

•Funding: The USOC changed the way it allocates resources following the 1998 Games in Nagano, where Americans took home just 13 medals. USOC support became more customized to the needs of national governing bodies and based on past success instead of democratically distributing money to sports with little chance of winning medals.

•Veterans: Only seven of the 37 medals, and none of the nine golds, were won by athletes in their first Olympics. It was one of the oldest U.S. teams ever, with an average age of nearly 26. And 38 members of the 215-person team are in their 30s.

•New sports: The Winter Games program began including so-called X or action sports — snowboard, short-track speed skating, freestyle skiing — in the 1990s, and no nation has benefited more than the United States. Of the 37 U.S. medals here, nearly half (17) came in events added since 1992. Germany, by contrast, won all 29 of its medals in “traditional” sports.